Gnorman's Complete E6 Compendium

[Gnorman]

As always, responses in bold.

Heheh, I was thinking Bionic Commando as well.

Reverse Bullrush sounds interesting, you could simply resolve it "as a bullrush" but with the ultimate direction being towards instead of away from the player. There's a lot of tactical utility there.

I think this may be the direction I take it in (no pun intended). Outside of teleportation spells/powers and the odd bullrush-specialized class, moving your enemy is a fairly rare power.

No offence taken; it just occurred to me that the most Monk-like features were already present on the main class for everyone to use. If the Cenobyte is going to be more "pure brawler" than any other brawler, one that makes better use of the base class features is one way to go about it.

The cenobite isn't quite "more 'pure brawler'", he's intended to be the stereotypical mystical hermit. Meditation, mental and bodily perfection, all that jazz. Except without the anti-materialist angle, because Vow of Poverty sucks.

Alright, expanding on this:

Are you including the fact that the Red Mage gets four fewer skills and a smaller hitdie than the Engineer into this consideration as well?

How does the Engineer compare against the Black Mage? Or the White Mage? The Blue Mage and the Green Mage?

If he's more versatile than primary spellcasters who are Low BAB, 2 Skillpoints and D6 HD, then I'm very much in the "Inventions get beaten heavily with the nerf-hammer" camp. If he's got more powerful options as well, then I'd be suggesting he gets 4 Skillpoints and a D6 HD, just to keep it reasonable.

I think with the planned changes to the invention system (i.e. toning down a few of the more egregious ones, adding a per-level preparation table, et cetera), it should be fine. A red (or black, or white, or green, or blue) mage gets 22+ spells per day and a 4th-level capstone. At least 5 of those are 3rd-level effects. An engineer tops out at around 9 inventions per day (6 at level 6, with 1 bonus invention from archetype, 1 from Jury Rigging, and 1 from Improvisation [pending changes to the ability]), only about 4 of which will be able to be 3rd-level effects, with 3 of those 4 restricted in one way or another. I think that the improved chassis is a worthwhile trade. The engineer is versatile in that he can be a healer one day, a bomber another, or a tank on one, but has trouble adapting to short-term problems. A red mage is a gish, pure and simple, each and every day, but can respond to threats with spontaneity.

Red Mage with the crafter archetype.

Only works for Magic Arms and Armor, though - only the Magewright can craft higher-level wondrous items.

Class level plus charisma mod minions actually seems a bit low: I'm imagining Pikmen here. Maybe 2 x class level plus charisma mod?

Assuming an 18 Charisma, that's six minions at first level and sixteen at sixth. Not a bad progression. Will change.

Thinking on it, maybe it should be the cenobite who gets the armed flurry, not the Martial Artist? Martial Artist can certainly afford to lose it, whilst Cenobytes would benefit the most from having an armed flurry - possibly not even restricted to monk-only weapons as opposed to weapons they're proficient with.

Will consider.

Gladiator Level 6.

Full simple weapon proficiency, full martial weapon proficiency, and three exotic weapon proficiencies.
Light and Medium armour proficiency.
Shields (not specified to include Tower Shields).
Three flexible Fighter Feats.
Counts as a Level 6 Fighter (Meaning, I believe, Weapon Specialisation and not much else).
May reroll a single miss per encounter, cannot be disarmed, and weapon cannot be sundered (as ever, absolute immunity seems a little excessive, perhaps they could get a +Class Level as a bonus to resist sunder and disarm attempts with it?)
Modified Whirlwind attack, essentially targeting between two and three targets at full BAB.
May move 5' as a swift action.
May take 10' steps instead of 5' steps.

+6/+1 Attacks
+5/+2/+2 Saves
15-60 + Con HP
4 + Int Maxed skills.

Once per encounter:
Remove all non-lethal damage and a slew of effects, not including most mental ones.
Additional Full Attack as a swift action. The RAW does not grant an additional 5' step, so that's fine.
Ignore any one attack as an immediate action.

To me, that all sounds good.

Overall, the base chassis gives a lot less than the Brawler, who basically uses a Bastard Sword in each hand when they're level 6, attacks more often, has better saves, and with a Chain Shirt and 14 Int or Wis is getting AC equal to full plate (half of which applies to touch attacks). Has Evasion, moves faster, has Standard Action full attacks... And unarmed strikes can't be disarmed or sundered.

If it's the Battlefist, then they're even potentially doing Greatsword Strength-and-a-half damage. With reach.

And I almost forgot, they have pounce by default.

With this in mind, it may actually be fairer to make the Brawler medium BAB. It shouldn't greatly diminish the class, and will rein it in here. They'll still handily fulfil the mobile combatant archetype.

I'd prefer not to reduce the brawler's BAB, but you may be right that it needs to be reined in a little. Perhaps a slight reduction in unarmed damage , hit dice size, and the removal of light armor proficiency (forcing them to act more of a hit-and-run fighter, since they'd be a bit more fragile). I'd still like to keep them mobile with multiple attacks, since that's kind of the core idea of the standard 3.5 monk.

Anyway, on to the archetypes.

Brute:
Needs an "if positive" condition applied to Constitution modifer DR.

Rage 3x a day. "As a Barbarian of his class level" is slightly awkward, as a literal reading means that he may earn an additional Rage/day at level 4, but still gets the basic +4 Str/+4 Con/-2 AC and +2 Morale bonus to will saves.
Strength to Intimidate.
40' base speed, not slowed by wearing Medium armour.
May charge over difficult terrain and change direction up to 90 degrees whilst charging.
Pounce, and charge does not give an AC penalty.
DR of at least 2 + base con modifier/- whilst raging.
+6 untyped(?) bonus to Will saves against hostile mind-affecting effects whilst raging. Presumably stacks for a +10 Will save.

Not a big fan of rage, but it's a solid archetype, at least whilst raging. I'd even consider giving it an extra rage at level 6 as a minor boost.

Well, I need the barbarian represented somewhere (though I remain disappointed that the barbarian is represented solely by an archetype - almost every other base 3.5 class has its own adaptation of a class). Perhaps adding Rage to the base gladiator chassis (refluffed as some kind of battle frenzy), and making the brute the best at it, might not be a bad idea?

Kensei:

I won't go into the homebrew disciplines for fear of what I'll find.
6 Manoeuvres known.
4 Manoeuvres readied. Recovered with a swift action.
2 Stances known.
Largely irrelevant "WoC is always discipline weapon", but opens the potential for Shadow Blade Dex SAD with a few feats.... With an Elven Courtblade.
Immune to fear.
Maximises damage on successful crits, if the threat was from a natural 20.

I would be concerned that he was a little lackluster on the archetype traits, but manoeuvres make up all of that. This is pretty well balanced in my opinion.

Glad to hear it.

Master-At-Arms

Ignore metal-based DR.
Switch WoC as a swift action.
Basically free +4 to what I assume to be: Bullrush, Trip, Disarm, Feint, Sunder, Overrun, or Grapple. (I'm not sure if "Combat Manoeuvres" is a game term in D&D, but I think that's what it is in Pathfinder).
WoC is Keen and gets an extra x1 to its multiplier.

Subtle but potent, with his WoC (which is obviously pretty much always) he has the good half of every "Improved X" feat and is set up for easy specialisation into all of them. A Fullblade with a 17-20/x3 2D8 (with which they are proficient as one of their free proficiencies) or a 19-20/x4 Dwarven War Axe in each hand are both serious damage dealing options.

Sounds about right.

Pit Fighter
It should possibly change "connects" to "hits" with an AoO, I'm not sure if connecting is game terminology.

Sure, will do.

Needs the Combat Reflexes feat harder than the Druid needs Natural Spell.

Yes, yes he does.

Take a 5' step every time an AoO hits.
Gives mages serious issues with Defensive Casting and keeping spells.
Full Attacks on every AoO.

AoO specialist, if it weren't for that awesome capstone I'd consider it a rather modest class after removing those more insane features.

For optimisation...
With Karmic Strike this guy gets to Full Attack anyone who hits him in melee.
With Hold the Line he gets to Full Attack anyone who charges him.
With Close Quarters Fighting he gets to Full Attack the Breathstealer (or anyone else) whenever he attempts to pull grapple shenanigans, and add the damage dealt as a bonus to resisting the grapple.
With Expert Tactician, if you hit with your first AoO of your Full Attack, you get an immediate +2 to hit with the second, and for the next round.

He basically gets the Double Hit feat for free if he TWFs.

For survival purposes, it's arguably worthwhile to drop two feats to pick up Stone Power for temporary hitpoints each round, or the Fey Heritage feats for DR 4/Cold Iron, since you'd be getting hit a lot, and Karmic doesn't care if you get hurt or not.

It may not be a bad idea to include a clause for the Major ability that "a pit fighter may only do so a number of times per round equal to his Dexterity modifier". Otherwise, I agree, looks fine.

Vindicator:

Skipped since he's getting potentially reworked. Conditional bonii aren't great, compared to the other archetypes he's a bit left out.

I feel the same way. I'm going to replace him with a half-casting red mage archetype.

However, the Brawler is much more likely to have a lower strength, and so hit less. Add in medium BAB and while not being at monk levels of suck, a brawler will hit far less often.

I do not plan on reducing the brawler's BAB.

Also, I would really prefer if the homebrew disciplines stayed in the base class design. I prefer them, to be honest, and as long as you have regular disciplines as alternatives it doesn't matter. And they actually are balanced.

It's probably best to leave that adjudication to individual groups, I suppose.

They where about the same in my independent playtest (not the short-lived one on the forum, and before the modification to the ability level order), the Engineer was about as versatile and powerful as a smart mage (who doesn't nova all the time); his powers are strong, but limited in uses and in versatility, and it is harder to make an Engineer that is good at more than one thing due to this.

Thank you for the practical example - it sounds as if the engineer is operating as intended, at least in this case.